Rings Around the Sun
by TheTrueMrX
Summary: WORLD WAR TWO LOOMS. With Sonic and company warped to Earth, they find themselves in a danger much too great for even them to handle. A world politically, culturally, and economically splintered though years of war, lies, and exploitation. Can they survive the coming conflict? Will they manage to return home?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: this is a World War 2 based Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction. Basically, the idea is a what-if scenario. Instead of Sonic being warped to a near future of Earth, as seen in Sonic X, Sonic and co. are instead warped to Earth during its most bloody and tragic time. This fanfiction is in no way an endorsement of any ideals seen during WW2. This fanfiction is in no way created to make light of the tragedy that was WW2. I will attempt to make all events as historically accurate as possible, however given that I am no expert errors are bound the exist. That being said, this is still a Sonic fanfiction with the backdrop being World War 2, so an obvious suspension of disbelief is needed.**

Rings Around the Sun

**Chapter 1: Approach**

_March 11, 1938_

**_Omaha Boy Writes Upside Down with Both His Hands_**

_Omaha, Neb., March 10.—[Special.] —William Costello, 12 years old, broke his left arm three years ago. He was left handed, and when he tried to write with his right hand his first attempts were upside down. After his arm healed he practiced writing upside down with his left hand and then with both hands at the same time. Now he can write inverted nearly as well as in the orthodox manner._

Sonic's face slid over dirt and grass while pebbles shot up into his ears. Given his speed, and the smoothness of both his face and the ground, Sonic slid for quite a distance. From behind, his legs flew over his head as he began to somersault forward in the air uncontrollably with his legs and arms flailing searching for unfound traction. Mercifully, Sonic came to a halt as he crashed through a simple rustic wooden fence, back first, crashing through the two horizontal beams perpendicular to the posts. The splinters would crash all around him, but Sonic was nonetheless pleased the be stopped, for once. He laid motionless for a second, with his head facing towards his newest piece of collateral damage, before finally opening his eyes.

Directly above Sonic was the blue sky he'd seen all his life. Much lighter than he would have expected for this hour. Looking around, Sonic took notice of the lonely gravel path he must have flown over after breaking the fence, as well as the larch trees which only had just started growing its needles back.

Taking a slow breath, Sonic focused on a sole cloud passing overhead. Sonic saw no special shape in the cloud.

Barely audible, Sonic muttered to himself. "Where'd Eggface send me this time?" Throwing his hands back behind his head and towards the ground, and swinging his bent legs towards his chest, Sonic lurched himself forward to spring to his feet in a kip up motion. Suddenly upright, Sonic blasted up the tallest tree within view. Out from tree flew out abnormally large and dull flickies, which scattered with no real sense of camaraderie. Even with his recent tumble, dodging tree branches was still a breeze for the blue hero.

Now standing like a weathervane at the top of the larch, Sonic began to examine his surroundings. Sonic put his two arms out, formed L's with his two hands, and brought them together to make a square. Slowly, he began to pan around focusing only on the area in his makeshift non-magnified spotter.

"Yep, I'm in a forest alright. Must be halfway across the planet, it was nearly night when we left. Ha, we. Hey, Tails! You out there! ...Didn't think so." Eventually, Sonic did scan his whole horizon, and confirmed to himself silently that he was, indeed, in a forest. "Oh well, we had him beat with or without me. I guess I can't have all the glory all the time." Figuring there was no time like the present, Sonic jumped off the tree, walked over to the gravel path, made a mental note to pay for repairs, and took off north towards nothing in particular.

... - -. .. -.-. / ... . -.. / .-.. . .- .-. -. / - - .-. ... . / -.-. - -.. . -.-.- / ... - -. .. -.-. / ... . -.. / .-.. . .- .-. -. / - - .-. ... . / -.-. - -.. . -.-.-

"Du Deutsch!?" Rubbing his bald head, and feeling for his glasses, Eggman hardly noticed the men with guns drawn towards him shouting questions at him.

"Vous Français!?" Stabbed by a shard of dark glass, Eggman found his glasses. Coming to his senses, he put on his new two prong monocle.

"Sei Italiano!?" Eggman looked up, and saw, for the first time, it was him looking down the barrel of a gun. "Er muss Italiener sein, sieh dir seine Figur an!"

"You English?" Eggman's exposed eye widened, his mouth moved barely agape. For a moment, utter clarity. A timeless thought, unbound by the fourth dimension, with neurons pulsing through his brain at incredible speeds as to overtake all current and previous cognition.

_"I, where am I? These men, they are men! Are they not? Gloveless, spineless, clothed men! And those are weapons, yes they are. Metal and wood, a beautiful clash of nature and man. They are prepared to shoot me, do they not realize I am one of them? We are not alone! Have I returned, or have they invaded? Do they seek to conquer, be subjugated, make dreams reality? Turn lead to gold and bread into grain?! Leave the universe and seek the unknown to the known! WHERE AM I!"_

"I would not call myself English, for I only speak the language." Assessing the situation, Eggman held his hands up feebly and began to stand to his feet. The men continued to aim at Eggman, the rifling visible to the scientist. "I have not the faintest idea where I am, my fellow man, could you be burdened to take me to your home and welcome in a stranded traveler?"

"Not a Englishman? American must you be then, yes?" Gyrating his head to see his full surroundings, Eggman took count of the three men aimed at him. Their weapons were dissimilar and old, or at least having the appearance of age to them. Caked with dirt and lined with rust, Eggman was more worried about the tetanus he may contract if hit with one of the guns, which he deemed more realistic than being shot. Their shirts were collared, but dirty. Their pants stopped halfway between the knee and ankle, and were held up by an "X" shape which crossed over the shirt from front to back. Out of one of the men's pocket stuck out a tattered glove, which likely was to prevent against blisters rather than the elements. Behind the men laid two hoes and a shovel, with equal dirt and rust as the guns. Eggman deemed it strange that farmers would have rifles in equal numbers to tools and so readily accessible. One was missing both socks, or two were fortunate enough to have socks. None wore glasses, all were squinting.

"Yes! That's it, I'm an American! Now would you please lower your guns, and tell me where I am?" The shortest one, the only one who seemingly spoke english, thought for a moment, and then brought his gun up to eye and took an even more steady aim, as if to say 'I will shoot you'. The other two followed suit.

"Er sagt, er ist Amerikaner, ich sage, er ist ein britischer Spion!" "Dann schieß! Lass ihn für die Wölfe." "Ich bin kein Mörder. Mach du es." "Dann bringen wir ihn zurück in die Stadt und lassen ihn in einer Zelle verrotten."

Eggman had not the slightest clue what was going on, but he could tell from their body language of suddenly tightening their grip, to slowly lowering their guard, that things were going his way.

"Ja, you lucky man, egg man. You, come with us" Shorty said with a smile. Not exactly a toothless smile, but also not exactly a toothful one either.

"And where would that be?"

"Igis"

"Igis what?"

"Igis, Igis Schweizerische. Or Switzerland, since you English only speak it." He looked up, cleared his throat, and spit on the ground. One by one, the men picked up their tools on the ground and looped them to some unseen device behind their backs. With their guns still aimed at Eggman, though now at a waist level, they motioned him forward.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Welcome**

_March 11, 1938_

_**Flock of Red Birds Sings During Naturalist's Funeral**_

_Noblesville, Ind., March 10. —[Special.]—Perry Bray, 77 years Old, historian and naturalist interested in the study of birds, was buried this afternoon. A flock of red birds, perched on a tree near the church, sang all the time the services were in progress._

Before Sonic laid a dilapidated sign, with its oak rotting from exposure to the elements for countless years. The two ends were nailed to wooden spikes shooting down into the dirt. The sign towered over Sonic, with the bottom well over a foot above his head. He could tell the sign was once painted black with white lettering, but now it was more akin to the color of an expired banana with dirty milk powder letters. Sticking his feet out to catch the loose gravel on the path, Sonic slowed to a stop as he slowly made out the decaying letters.

"Halt! Ahster wretch-un, gariches, wretch vearl lassen? Ein rise in doytch kaizer wretch! What the? Uh, must be some sort of ancient language. Okay, time to flex my cultural knowledge. Stop! Ostrich rich-not garrisoned rich… high rise in duck rich? Ugh, this is ridiculous. I'm sure it's not that important, would'a've used more than one dead language if it was." Glancing at the sign one more time, Sonic revved up in place, and took off forward in his signature figure-eight style run.

Gradually, the trees became more lush as the path gently sloped down towards a clearing. The path joined another, creating a marginally larger gravel path, which then in turn intercepted a much larger concrete road running orthogonally to the path. Finding his first real sign of civilization, Sonic stopped to get his bearings. His situation had hardly changed, Sonic was still in a forest, flanked by trees on all sides. In the distance, he could spot mountains peeking through between tree branches with the last remains of winter at their peaks. He could hear the gentle ebbs of a river as it glid across a rock shore. Presumably, any sand which may have accumulated had been swept downstream. In the distance, Sonic spotted another, much better maintained, sign which stood on one leg with an arrow on the top to indicate direction.

"München, 60 km." Sonic, not understanding what a km. was, simply shrugged his shoulders, aimed himself in the direction of the arrow, and started off down his newfound piece of civilization.

To his left, Sonic finally spotted the river he had been hearing. To his surprise, the river was less a river and more a sad tributary. Like a leaky spigot running down a cement sidewalk. On the other bank, beneath the eternal evergreens and fleeting foliage, a cracked bed was sprouting. Still, Sonic was able to spot a grey fish sulking in the middle of the stream.

To his right, hills and trees. The road had been cut into the sides of the hills, exposing the ashy stones which normally hid under grass and roots. Looking off at a distant mound, the homogeneity of the pines and their color appeared like a loosely knit green quilt. Beyond, a clear square of trees was missing. Still, Sonic was able to hear general fauna bustling about.

Sonic followed the curves and bends of the road, which itself followed the curves and bends of a mighty river which once was. As sonic rounded a bend, homes finally came into view. Smoke lethargically escaped chimneys, forming spirals of nickel clouds as it climbed into the sky. Spires grazed the air looking for new space to fill. A soft pitter-patter of movement could be heard. The town was alive and had that rural chic vibe Sonic was enamored by. Approaching with speed, muddy rounded figures moved behind browned panes of glass with no sense of destination.

Becoming conscious of the gravel and dust Sonic was kicking up as he ran (and to not potentially cause any more collateral in an unknown place), he only figured it polite to slow down to a more back-alley walk speed. The now setting sun made Sonic's tropical lagoon blue quills pop in front of the walls of green which lined the path. His shoe buckle flashed as it was hit by the angled rays of the distant star. The walking antonym to subtlety approached the town with relief. Aware that he was to meet new people, Sonic licked his gloves and ran them through his spikes.

Out the nearest house ran a small child. Her gold hair shimmering off the descending sun, frayed cloth dress clinging to her shoulders, she did not notice the blue hedgehog who was now a stone's throw from the town as she ran to play in the remains of the day.

Sonic stopped.

_"A human?! But the Emeralds separated our worlds years ago! Eggman mustn't've sent me across the globe, but out of this world! Erm, that world. Phft, not that it matters. I'm still galactic superstar extraordinaire, Sonic the Hedgehog! I saved this world from, what, at least 3 world death monsters. I'll show up, be showered with roses and gifts, pointed to some unexplained portal which randomly popped up and is terrorizing the town with aliens or robots or something, I'll beat them up, run into Eggs for brain, beat him up, and be on my way back home."_

The girl, now finishing a lap around her house, turned to face the similarly sized, galactic superstar extraordinaire, Sonic the Hedgehog. Head crooked, one eye closed, mouth in a white side smile, Sonic gave a single wave to one of his admirers moving only his wrist.

Instantly, the girl began to cry. Unable to find strength to form understandable words, she let out an incoherent muffled shout, as if she had just been punched in the stomach. Running towards her door, she tripped over her own feet, and scuttered into the door on her hands and knees. Flabbergasted, Sonic stood with his back in a forwards arch and his mouth in an uppercase 'D' shape. He hardly noticed a woman inside draw the curtains back, look at the three foot tall, blue, thin-limbed, disproportionately head to body, human-hedgehog chimera, begin to let out her own muffled scream. The girl, regaining control of her brain and mouth, began to scream.

"Blauer teufel, blauer teufel! Monster!" Even behind a closed door, and in a foreign language, Sonic knew it was not his warmest welcome. Regaining his composure, Sonic briefly studied his arms and legs to make sure he was still the charming hero he remembered.

_"Maybe not my biggest fans. Small town yeah, but how could they have never heard of all the times I SAVED THE WORLD. Did they miss the part where Eggman blew up half the moon, threatened Earth, and then I stopped him? I thought he did a good job advertising that. Like, how did they miss the Moon? The… Moon…?"_

The setting sun gave rise to the glowing moon. Not that the Moon had particularly moved, but the approaching darkness made it finally visible. What especially stood out to Sonic, at least, was the fullness of the Moon. Not the phase, for the moon was waxing, but of the literal completeness the hanging Moon contained. No gashes or scars, face unchanged. Damaged only by asteroids wearing down the surface over billions of years. The grey patterns etched into the moon which Sonic recognized for most of his life, before Eggman destroyed them, had returned.

"Oh uh, hehe, looks like it's uh, mhm, yeah let's just, um. I guess I figured out the reaction." Scratching behind his ear, Sonic's voice faltered. He had been in other worlds and other dimensions before, but the news is always difficult to take in. Lost in thought over his new discovery, plenty of village folk had time to hear the commotion, and then make some of their own with THEIR new discovery. Figuring it was better to make his appearance known, rather than run off into the forest to become a myth and the cause of a town wide therapy case, Sonic began making his way down the road, formally entering the town.

"What, never heard a hedgehog talk before? I'm not the one yelling, really, I should be scared of you! Can anyone understand me?! Well I guess I'm an alien to these people, after all, so no." Sonic, now approaching the center of the deserted town, swung his arms back and forth, crossed a leg over another, and sighed at his predicament. "And here I thought I was being friendly. Guess I'll need to find a dictionary. Town like this, do they even have a libra-."

From behind, in the largest and most 'festive' building, the double doors burst open to reveal a trope of seven outfitted men exiting the building in a 'v' shape. In their hands, wood and steel rifles about the same length as Sonic himself. They were, of course, all aiming at Sonic. Spreading out, they formed a half circle around the hedgehog not losing sight once. Sonic had not changed his pose.

All were dressed the same. Their field grey jackets were adorned with various buttons, emblems, and insignia. Even in the reflective light of the moon, their buttons shined. But most prominent was the eagle above the right breast of each man. From Sonics distance, he could just make out that the wings were stretched out at a right angle, and that the talons carried some sort of 'X' circumscribed by a metal circle. The emblem appeared again on their caps, with a new design right below it: a silver grey flower with centered copper yellow pods. The edelweiss.

"Identifizieren Sie sich!" Commanded the middle man. Given how he had the most grey in his hair, Sonic guessed he was the leader of the posse. He was at the midpoint of the half circle, and behind him the building the group had exited. The building was unlike any other in the town. Precision crafted out of various lifeless stones, decorated with reds and blacks. The 'X' appeared on various parts of the building: banners draping besides the door, on flags flowing out from the roof, displayed on the buildings gables, formed on the skirts connecting the foundation to the rest of the building. It was brazen and fierce, unashamed and proudly displayed.

"Sorry bud, but I think there's gonna be a language gap for our little chat. And I don't have a translator this time." Despite the gravity of the situation, Sonic found himself lax and calm. Sonic closed his eyes and smirked. "You guys weren't planning on using those on me, were you?"

"Halt die Klappe, englischer Schweinehund!" He then twitched his rifle towards the two outermost men on the ends, and then back at Sonic. Immediately, the two men started making their way towards Sonic. Sonic's eyes snapped back open, bent his knees ever so slightly, and sprung himself towards the middle man. The five center men fired at the sign of movement, but all of them hit the surrounding buildings not expecting Sonic to leap into the air. Sonic somersaulted in midair, flinging himself over the head of the leader. Outstretching his arm and twisting 180 degrees, he snatched the man's cap in a swift gesture as he flew over head. Now descending towards the ground and facing the men from behind, Sonic brought his knees up to his chest and, with all the strength he could muster, kicked himself off the back of the group leader. The man was toppled head over heels to the floor crashing into the stone brick ground shoulder first. Sonic used the force to propel himself into the air in a backflip motion. Upside down, he watched as the two outer men, who had not yet shot, become distracted by their invincible leader collapsing in front of them. Like a dancer, Sonic landed with his toes on a flagpole sticking out the top of the building. Standing on top of the red, white, and black flag, Sonic spun the cap around its inner lining with his forefinger before throwing it down to the ground.

"Sorry 'bout that, but you did try to shoot me." And with that, Sonic brought his right foot up and then back down, driving it into the flagpole. The pole bent downwards under the force of his foot, and then snapped back upwards, springing the hedgehog up into the air before splintering in the center of the pole. Sonic grabbed hold of the roof with both his hands, and vaulted over the side. He heard the gunfire of the two men who had regained their focus on Sonic.

Now lying flat on the roof, Sonic breathed softly. There was shouting from below but he could not hear properly to listen. He began to roll on his side towards the middle of the roof to avoid being possibly seen. Instantly he felt it. At the end of his right shoulder blood was slowly trickling down his arm. A line of dark, almost black red had formed on his shoulder from where one of the men's bullets had sailed through his flesh. The bullet had not entered the shoulder fully, only grazing the skin. The pain rolled in waves. First, nothing. The adrenaline pumping through Sonic as he evaded capture in conjunction with the skin nerve endings being instantly torn through allowed Sonic to feel unscathed. But the waves came crashing down. The scorching copper had melted away at Sonic's skin, making him feel as if he was on the wrong end of a blowtorch. And in the uncontacted skin, the kinetic energy of the round made his surrounding flesh ripple up and down from the power of the shot. Sonic threw his left hand over his shoulder and applied pressure. He could see his glove slowly start to stain with blood.

Meticulously rising up without the use of his hands, Sonic's eyes flickered back and forth looking for an escape. Shouting could be heard from inside the building, and rising as the men climbed the stairwell approaching the roof. With no other option, he stood up straight, aimed himself at the forest on the outskirts of town, and assumed the runners pose. He clenched his fists hard, causing more blood to flow down his skin and drip onto his short leg quills. He took off.

The door to the roof flew open, but they were too late. Sonic was already gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Glow**

_October 20, 1057_

_**Annual Seaside Hill Walk for Peace cancelled over weather concerns**_

_The annual Seaside Hill Walk for Peace, a charity event to raise money for those affected by conflict stemming from Dr. Eggman, was cancelled yesterday over concerns of Hurricane Honey touching down during the walk. Traditionally, Monsoon season is later in the year for Seaside hill, leaving scientists baffled. All are advised to stay clear of the following areas over the next week: Seaside Hill, Ocean Palace, Sea G… __**Pg 12**_

A magnificent glow shot out in front of them, and instantly Tails and Amy's heads turned in the biplane. Engulfed in a white sphere, Eggman's base was gone. A gentle haze surrounded the sphere like the rings around the sun. The ball was glowing; the ball was growing.

"TAILS WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Amy frantically shouted to the navigator. She was not just shouting because their comms were busted and the wind was in her face, but because Tails was now turning their plane to face the glow. It happened all so suddenly. Tails and Amy airdropped Sonic just moments ago, and now he was in there.

"AMY THAT ISN'T AN EXPLOSION, THAT'S CHAOS CONTROL! AND WHEREVER IT TAKES SONIC HE'S GONNA NEED BACKUP!" The ball had already started to recede with trees reemerging from the ball of light. Tails confirmed his suspicion that this was not an explosion as the trees on the ground had been unaffected by the chaos control wave.

"WELL GUN IT, THAT THING ISN'T GOING TO LAST MUCH LO-! TAILS WHA-, GET BACK IN YOUR SEAT!" The Fox had unbuckled his seatbelt, and now was climbing onto the wing of the plane. He then motioned Amy to join him up there, and to do it fast. With her mouth slightly ajar, she remained motionless.

"HURRY!"

Snapping to her senses, she wrestled the belt off her waist, and pulled herself onto the head of Tails' seat. She reached out with both her hands to latch onto the wing and then pulled herself up. With the Tornado's target finder enabled, the plane remained locked onto the sphere even without a pilot. The time was coming soon.

"GET READY TO HOLD ONTO ME, IF WE END UP IN THE AIR I'LL NEED TO FLY US TO SAFETY!" Amy just barely nodded her head. Her eyes were wide, but she was prepared. "DO IT!" She locked her hands around Tails' chest, and she could feel his body start convulsing as he prepared to lift them. By now, the glow had become too strong for the two of them. They closed their eyes and crossed through.

\- ... . ... . / .- .-. . / ..-. - .-. / - .. - . / .- .- .-. .-. ... / - .-. / -.-. ... .- .-. .- -.-. - . .-. / ... ... .. ..-. - ...

_March 12, 1938_

_**Koehler to Ask U.S. to Study Water Here**_

_Health Official Proposes New Survey; Refers to 'Smearing' in State's 'Boil Freely' Report. An independent survey of Milwaukee's water situation by the United States public health service will be asked by City Health commissioner John P. Koehler as a result of action by the state board of health recommending that he order the boiling of water more frequently._

The white glow penetrating through their eyelids had deceased; they knew they were through. They were now flying 100 miles per hour through the sky without a plane.

Opening his eyes, Tails gripped tightly around Amy's shoulder and began spinning his twin tails to gain some modicum of control over their planeless flight. He lifted their bodies to be perpendicular to the air in front of them to catch as much drag as possible. Amy's short bangs were slicing at his nose, but he was more worried about spiraling into the unknown below him than his complexion. Slowly, they stopped falling forwards and were soon falling in the more traditional direction. Tails once again angled their bodies, this time downwards like two parachutists in tandem. Using the last of his major energy, he helicoptered his tails to finally slow down into a controlled descent.

Amy, with her face stuffed against Tails' chest and unable to see, muffled out "Tails, give me some good news…!"

"Well, uh, see for yourself." Tails released his right arm slowly from around Amy, reached around his back and grabbed hold of her right hand. With the two clasping hands, they then did the same with their left hands. Like a cat's cradle, the two unwound. Amy swung around to face forward and ended up below Tails, hanging hand to hand with him. Tails' lip faintly curled into a smile, remembering all the times he and Sonic found themselves in this same position on their many adventures.

"...Wow, this is beautiful. Good thing Sonic isn't here, or he would be freaking out so hard right now." Around them on all sides was water. The morning sun bounced off each drop of water reflecting a brilliant blue sea of color. "Well, I hope Sonic wasn't here." They were still to high in the air to make out marine animals or even waves, but they both silently imagined that the sea harbored life. Suddenly, Amy yanked her left hand back and pointed it off into the sea. "Look Tails, off in the distance, 10 o'clock!" Tails, now using his free arm to shield the sun from his eyes, squinted off in the direction Amy was pointing.

The first thing Tails noticed was the grey steam which contrasted heavily against the brackish sea. He traced the steam following the end which was decreasing in size. Even if he could not fully make it out, the soft metallic colors deep in the distance more or less confirmed a ship of some size to exist. After scanning the whole barren horizon, they decided that the boat was their best bet for safety. With it still being miles away, flying there was out of the option.

Tails plucked a hair out from his head and dropped it. It slowly fell to the sea with no drift.

"Amy, there's no wind, and no chance I can get us to that boat." Her left hand reached back up, Tails took it. "But look, the steam at the bottom is darker than the steam at the top. That means it's heading this way. Hey, how long can you float?"

She looked up, tilting her head all the way back to look directly at him. "...Why?"

"Well, if we can't crash into the boat, we'll just have to make her crash into us, hehe."

Amy looked back down and let out a small groan, and just loud enough so Tails could hear, "Why'd I even ask."

"We're going to fly left until we are inline with that boat, and then forward for as long as we can. After, we'll just have to float until we collide." Looking away from the Sun, Tails still could not spot their shadow in the water so he knew they still had some time until splash down. Not hearing protest from Amy, he yawed his tail propellers until they were at a right angle with the ship and then pitched forward.

"Easy for you to say when you're not wearing a dress that, may I tell you, retains water quite well." Placing the sole of her boot on the heel of the other, she aggressively kicked down to remove the shoe and shed weight. Coming loose, she curled her foot to keep the boot from falling. She bent her leg back, and then shot forward, sailing the boot through the air.

Instinctively Tails began counting once the boot hit its apex. "... Eight, nine, ten, eleven!" His fox eyes could spot the brief splash from Amy's rain boot colliding into the water at close to terminal velocity. Amy, kicking her other boot away, did not think much of Tails' counting. "Therefore we are, um sixteen times eleven squared, so like two thousand feet in the air. Five minutes. That's how long till we're swimming."

Amy did not say anything. Surrounded by water, hearing only the sounds of tails cutting through the air, she looked down at her socks, pretending to think about whether or not to take them off as well. Eventually, she did speak up. "Do you think he's okay?"

"Sonic? Well, there's no way to tell for sure. He was in that explosion for almost thirty seconds before we got in. So he could be thousands of miles away… or right under our feet. Chaos control is weird like that. But knowing him, he's probably already causing trouble somewhere. Besides, you're the one who can 'feel' him from just about anywhere, what do you think?"

"I… don't know. Maybe it's all the blue around us, little bit of sensory overload to my instincts. But what I do know is that when we get out of this, I'm teaching him how to swim."

Tails chuckled, "Yeah, maybe if you can find a flicky bath big enough for him to waddle into." The two shared a nervous laugh, both simultaneously worried about Sonic, themselves, and each other. Finally lined up with the boat still heading towards them, Tails turned to face the craft steaming away. By now, the two could only see the steam rising into the air as the rest of the ship had sunk into the horizon. Looking down, they saw their dreaded dual shadows chasing after them hugging the surface of the water. "Alright, this is it. This water is going to be around 60°, so stay close to me and we'll share heat. DON'T swim or tread, we'll just be wasting energy and heat. We're buoyant enough to stay afloat without it. And the warmth from your dress should offset the extra weight you'll gain from the water." And with that, he grew silent.

"_This is going to suck." _They both thought.

With the steam just over the horizon, both held their breath, closed their eyes, and submerged themselves into the early March water.

Even with Tails slowing down their fall tremendously, their bodies sunk down beneath the water. The sea ran through all of Amy's quills and fully drenched her dress. Tails' fur absorbed much of the water into itself, turning his typical yellow-orange furred self into a more pumpkin under the setting sun color. The cold beat into them, stabbing at their skin with its icy daggers. It clawed and scratched at any exposed flesh as it tried to pull the two down into its depths. The salt in the water attempted to pry their eyelids open and snag its rocky self into the soft whites of their eyes. But even under the shock of the cold water, Tails and Amy held steadfast. Conscious not to kick each other, they vigorously swiped down at the water with their cupped hands, rebelling at the invisible arms climbing out from the dark trenches of the sea. Each pull loosened the waters hold over them. Finally, Amy emerged out breaking through the surface of the water. She reached down, grabbed Tails' gloved hand, and pulled him up next to her.

Tails gasped for air. The coldness had evidently forced all the oxygen from his lungs and starved his blood cells of its life support. Slowly filling his lungs back to capacity, he shook his head free of water. Peeking through a crack in his eyelids, he could tell his vision had been impaired from salt slipping in his large eyes. He brought his gloves up to his eyes to rub them for some sort of relief. Before Amy could stop him, Tails pushed the salty fabrics across his face and into his eyes.

"Ah, crap Amy! Why would I do that!" He resisted the urge to rub at his eyes again and instead grappled around his forehead. Letting out a guttural noise in frustration, his fingers scrunched up as he pulled against the short furs topping his head. He brought his head violently back against the water in a self-destructive attempt to deal with his irritation and pain.

"Tails stop! You aren't helping by doing that!" With Amy's voice of reason, Tails stopped and looked down at the water. His teeth were exposed and his panting could be easily heard. Amy could not tell where the water dripping off his face was from. She reached out and brought his head to her shoulder. She could feel him shaking in her arms. Amy softly brought her chin down on the top of Tails' head and stroked through his fur.

Gazing off towards the steam, Amy watched as a mast breached the horizon.

\- ... . ... . / .- .-. . / ..-. - .-. / - .. - . / .- .- .-. .-. ... / - .-. / -.-. ... .- .-. .- -.-. - . .-. / ... ... .. ..-. - …

It was morning. After escaping into the forest last night, he had slid through brambles and brush for what had seemed like an eternity for Sonic. His wound had not stopped naturally bleeding, and rushing past crowded conglomerations of trees had not done it any favors. He had not yet slept.

Scoping out a clearing from the ground and from the tops of trees, he decided this was the place. Sonic started placing his gathered supplies for his planned bootleg operation.

First, the wooden bucket. It had a metal bottom and a metal strap around the center to hold the shape of the bucket. He grabbed it with his left arm and ran off to fill it in one of the many streams flowing in the area. He had stolen the bucket during his run last night from a farm. Sonic did not intend to return it.

Filled with river water, he placed the bucket down on some loose stones nearby. Sonic then quickly scoured nearby trees for fallen branches and gathered them next to the bucket.

He stepped onto a batch of dry and yellowing grass. He took a couple deep breaths, looked up at the sun, closed his eyes, and started running in place. With each step, he dragged his foot deeply across the ground with intensity. Even though Tails had designed the shoes to produce as little heat as possible, eventually the friction from Sonic antagonizing the ground was too much for the grass to handle. Sonic looked down and saw the yellow grass turning black with little flicks of embers at the tips of the plants. Without a spared moment, he jumped down, uprooted some burning grass and softly, but urgently, brought it to the branches. He tossed his pathetic matchsticks onto the smallest of twigs he had gathered, lowered himself onto his knees, and lightly began blowing onto the pile of grass, fire, and wood. The grass brought fire to the twigs, which brought fire to the sticks. With each piece of fuel, the fire grew strong and Sonic grew nervous.

Sonic grabbed the longest stick he had gathered with his left arm and caught the bucket under its handle. Lifting it up, some water from the overflowing bucket splashed out. He brought it over to the fire, stretched his arm out, and held the bucket over the blaze.

The metal bottom began to be singed from the shooting fires below the bucket, and rapidly the heat transferred into the water. Soon, the river water was brought to a boil. Sonic let the bucket seethe for a number of minutes to thoroughly eradicate any germs or microorganisms that had the misfortune of finding themselves in the bucket. Satisfied with his efforts, he placed the bucket down near the fire to keep it at least at a simmer.

Deciding it was time, he grabbed the bottle of alcohol he had stolen from a different farm. It had been sitting on a railing looking tall and pretty. Briefly casting off his lifetime sobriety, Sonic took deep gulps of the high proof alcohol out of its clear-glass square bottle. Raspberry. Pulling back, Sonic read the solitaire label on the bottle. "_Snaps." _He set the bottle next to the bucket.

Reaching out behind his head with his left arm, Sonic gripped at the roots of a clump of quills, and in a swift motion, jerked them away from his head. He silently blessed his decision to keep his quills long but well maintained. Holding the spikes from the root with the sharp end pointing away from Sonic, he dipped them into the boiling water as deep as his hand would allow him without burning himself. He counted to one hundred and pulled back.

Like a sinkhole, a pit had grown in his stomach. It engulfed his entire body with its invisible anxiety. Needing to reduce his heart rate, Sonic took deep breaths. He mentally traced the flow of air down his throat, into his lungs, and out again. He brought his teeth down to his bloody right glove and removed it. Figuring it would not strain his arm much, Sonic grabbed a unburnt stick with his free right hand, placed it into his glove, pierced through the index finger, and pushed the stick through until the glove was halfway down the wood. He opened his mouth, and bit down on the gloved stick much like a mouthpiece.

Swapping the heated quills to his right hand, Sonic once again grabbed at the bottle. It was still half full. By now, the forest as a whole was silent to Sonic. Even the crackling fire was not registering to the hedgehog. Sonic looked at the exposed bullet wound on his right shoulder and sighed. Bringing the alcohol to the darkened flesh, he began to drain its contents onto the wound.

He bit down harshly on his mouthpiece, but eased up when he reminded himself that this was just the start. He eyed the alcohol level, and stopped once he had released half of the remaining drink. He carefully place the bottle down on the ground, and then sat down next to it. Sonic swapped the quills back to his left hand.

For the first time in his life, Sonic convinced himself to take this slow.

The wound was about three fingers across and relatively parallel to his head when looking straight. Sonic brought the quill to one end of the wound, bit down, and punctured through his skin at an angle. His quill slid right through his flesh and reappeared centered in the wound. Sonic's canine teeth punched through the glove and pierced in the wood beneath. His right arm started to rapidly shake in his lap from the agony of his self suture. With the needle only halfway through, Sonic began to make rapid breaths to force himself to calm down. Finally, he pushed his hand against his shoulder to lift the quill more upright. Finally, he pushed it into the other side of his wound, into his flesh, and out the other end. He spit his mouthpiece out, gripped the now exposed bloody sharp end of the quill with his teeth, and looped the root end around the other end with his left hand. He pulled back with his head and pulled away with his hand, tightening the loop into a knot. He let go with his teeth. In his hands were another three needles. Sonic swore and began to line the second quill up.

With more elegance, Sonic made his second suture. Puncture, flatten, puncture. He once again gripped the end with his teeth, being careful to avoid stabbing himself with the old stitch, and tied the second knot. In his head, Sonic thanked his hedgehog ancestors for blessing him with sharp, thin, and flexible body hair. Soon the third, and fourth quills were inserted and tied off. Eight times Sonic had stabbed through his skin with his own quills, but now it was over.

Looking at his craftsmanship, Sonic smiled and began crying. He picked up his tattered glove off the ground and wiped away the little blood he had drawn on his arm. No new blood was leaving the closed wound. Sonic drank the rest of the alcohol, dumped the now cooled water over the dwindling fire, laid down and passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Fog**

_March 12, 1938_

_**Flower Peddler Freed By Defiant Magistrate**_

_In defiance of a letter from Chief Magistrate Jacob Gould Schurman urging city magistrates to impose heavier fines on flower vendors, Magistrate Sabbatino suspended sentence yesterday on a peddler in Coney Island Court, declaring that "nobody can tell me what to do except my Creator, through my conscience."_

"I've read that H.G. Wells book, I know how this ends up!"

"We needn't worry, a bullet in the brain works wonders."

"Let's burn the bastards and throw them back into the sea."

On the deck laid a waterlogged and shoeless Amy Rose, and next to her an equally drenched Miles "Tails" Prower. Both were panting as their heads hugged the grainy wooden floor of the ship. Moments prior, Tails had exhausted the last of his spare energy reserves to lift himself and Amy onto the ship which had been plowing right towards them. After ascending past the bow of the ship, the two essentially crashed down into the deck.

"Did anyone else see that, those things just flew up to us right out of the water!"

Tails no longer had the strength to roll his head to look at the men talking down at himself and Amy. All he could do was relax his knee joints and go fully prone on his stomach. Neither paid attention to the approaching footsteps.

"What are you doing, don't touch it!"

"They're just kids, look how small they are!"

"The yellow one has two tails, and the pink thing has one eye! They're aliens and they'll kill all of us!"

"Kill? They can't stand on their feet!"

The crowd of seamen encircled the two creatures. They were cautious not to stand in the seawater the two were secreting from their fur and clothes. The troop largely had no weapons, save for a lanky soldier with his self-loading pistol in the back of the group. The one sailor who had started making his way towards the two stowaways stopped a yard away from their bodies. Their salty puddle was licking at his fading leather shoes looking for entrance. Excluding their swaying from the rocking boat, both the men and mutants were still. Waves crashed on the sides of the steel hull. The unaware seagulls bickered from their perched position on the mast overhead.

Like Tails, Amy was lying face down across the wood deck. Gently, the seawater flowed out of her ears and down the sides of her cheeks until reaching her chin and dripping down to the ground. Her entire body felt to her like it had the consistency of gelatin, but she was much more conscious than her ally. She blinked twice and wondered if the swooshing noises she was hearing were from the sea or from the blood rushing in her ears. Amy slowly brought her arm between her face and the floor and lifted herself up slightly; she looked up at the crowd surrounding her.

Bewilderment, disgust, and remorse painted the faces of the men. The rattle of the lanky soldier's metal pistol could be heard as his arms vibrated at the sight of her looking up. The men had all pressed back to try and make distance between themselves and the two on the ground. Feeling a thrash in the back of her throat, Amy began violently coughing up some of the water that had managed to sneak into her mouth. The men remained unmoving in the sight of her turmoil. Eventually, she stopped and cleared her throat. Feeling a light pressure against her lips, she wiped away loose saliva off her mouth and weakly smiled. "Sorry about that. And for sneaking onto your boat, haha…." With that, she dropped her head against her arm on the ground. Amy rotated her head to see Tails. He was slowly rising back and forth on the ground from shallow breaths.

In almost a whisper, one of the men spoke up. "Blimey, I knew the devil would speak our tongue." Amy snickered at the thought of being the devil, no one else laughed. By now, the crowd had attracted the attention of the whole ship—minus the crew piloting the vessel—who had started to form up with the crowd and ask questions, including the captain.

Expecting to see some sort of improvised bare-knuckle boxing event, the captain pushed through the crowd to get to his seniority spot of front row seat. Instead, he was greeted to the sight of a passed out humanoid fox and a slobbing female hedgehog both on the deck of his ship. His brow furrowed at the sight. "...Now where did you find two dwarfs with All Hallows' Eve costumes at?"

"Sir?"

"Get on your feet you two, where the hell did…?" The square-jawed captain had begun to pick up on the fact that none of his sailors seemed particularly amused by the display in front of them. He spotted in his peripheral that one of his soldiers actually had his sidearm drawn. Chasing up from the man's gun to his face, the soldier's eyes were staring directly at the captain in desperation. In fact, well over half the crowd was just staring at the captain.

His eyes widen and shot from man to man seeking answers for himself. "What is the meaning behind this?!" Instead of words, he was met with gazes. There were murmurs in the back and attempts at sentences, but nothing came to fruition.

In a mellow, almost joking tone, Amy was the one to speak up. "My friend and I were looking to not drown if that's alright with you." The captain did not say anything, and continued to stare at the sight in front of him.

"Sir, don't listen to her rubbish, they're aliens!"

"Aliens? The only aliens you'll ever see are the Japs. Bring them down into the hold and get those masks off. We'll question them once we arrive in Alexandria." The men briefly gave each other a side eye. Not wanting to risk a court-martial, the front most men stepped forward towards the two. They flipped Tails over onto his back. One man stationed himself at Tails' shoulders, another at the feet. They counted down and simultaneously picked him up. Despite being exclusively deadweight, the men picked him up with ease. Amy was instead picked up by two men from under her shoulders and instructed to walk while being dragged along. The two men were both in an uncomfortable squat as Amy was just shy under three feet tall. She did not protest, she did not have the strength to both walk and argue at the same time. Rather, Amy focused on the ground and carefully placed each one of her steps one after another. The combination of her dripping dress, slick socks, and overall lack of power in her legs made each step a chore in and of itself. Though she would slip, the men continued to guide and drag her towards the innards of the boat. The dark oaken planks beneath her feet showed little sign of degradation, suggesting to her that they had been recently cleaned.

Out in front of her, the piercing of a wheel turning and grinding gnawed at Amy's ears. A haze of the musty odor of corrugated iron engulfed Amy, causing her to scrunch her face in disgust. They crossed through a metal rounded door frame and were inside.

One dinky red-yellow light emitted a quiet hum of electric heat. A multitude of bent bars criss-crossed over top of the light. All it served was to illuminate the ladder/stair hybrid to the underbelly of the ship. Light from the outside spilled into the cabin before being absorbed into the unpolished, cold metallic floor. The new floor was covered with outwardly facing half sphere indents. Amy's feet traced over the hills and valleys of the dynamic ground. They stopped.

One of the men holding Tails released his grip and descended down the steps. A _clud _of leather on metal rang out. The other man, still holding Tails, slowly dropped him down the steps into the awaiting arms of the now descended sailor. Once released, the second sailor followed them down the steps.

The men walked Amy to the steps and had her stand straight up. They turned her around to face away from the stairs and towards the door. She watched as one of the sailors outside closed the door and twisted the wheel lock from the outside. The soldier on Amy's left released his grip and descended down the steps. The remaining soldier released as well, but he instead positioned himself between Amy and the door. Without speaking, he directed her to climb.

One arm at a time, Amy reached out towards the railing of the stairs. The metal railing bit into her gloved hands and lashed out at her wet skin underneath. It was cold. The angle of descent was steep, so much so that she could not both hold onto the railing and reach the next step. Lacking shame, Amy relinquished the railing and went down each step one at a time on her hands and knees. Every stair she climbed down was followed by the sailor at the top climbing down a step too. The sudden _Clunk_ from his leathery shoes distracted Amy into looking up at her captor/rescuer. He loomed over her. The red-yellow light illuminated only his face. His imperfections, cracks, ridges, folds, the sand in his eyes, the oils in his dirty blond hair, the uneven stubble beard on his face, all lit up on display. It was cold. He took another step down towards her.

The metal floor was not made for people not wearing harden shoes. The ends of the steps were jagged, short metal shoots waiting for bloody baptism. Amy's socks snagged these ends with almost every step, but she managed to avoid pricking herself.

With one last step Amy reached the bottom of the stairs and landed in a narrow hallway. On both sides were either doors or pipes. The doors had the same wheel contraption as the door outside, and the pipes presumably used the same metal as the rest of the ship. The dark red 'DANGER/HOT PIPES/DO NOT TOUCH' signs on every other pipe were hard to miss even in the dim lighting. Amy slowly brought her hand out towards one of the pipes to warm her damp gloves. A dull heat slid between her fingers as she inched forward. Sweet relief. The sailor who had previously descended reached out, gripped under Amy's shoulder, and pulled her back along. They were soon joined by the second sailor.

There was no longer enough room for the three of them to be shoulder to shoulder with one another, so they gave her the option of being carried or walking. Amy chose to walk. They lined up single file with Amy in the middle and took off towards the hold.

It was a maze of pipes and passages. A left here, a right there. Squeeze through on your side to get through, do not trip over the incline. Bash your head on that pipe and off to the infirmary. Wait, you're a pipsqueak. That steam should not come out there. Crashes, whistles, orchestrated madness. A cacophony of industrialized might, maybe magic. Footsteps everywhere, loose wires jittering with galvanized shocks. A ladder where the top is showered in light and the bottom drenched in darkness. Lights would flicker on and off at regular intervals until one would understand the interval and then the light would change the frequency of the flickering just to throw off the observer so they would never quite understand the pattern that was going on or even if there was a pattern or why there would be a pattern to randomly flickering lights and if the patterns were just illusions masterminded by the brain to try and make sense of the flickering like there was some sort of bigger meaning until they would decide against it since it required more thought than it was worth to deduce random flickering that seemingly was not random until it was. Stray too far to a side and the pipes would remind you why the dark red signs were plastered everywhere and stray too far to the middle and the cold cold cold glow of the metal engulfing and surrounding would engulf and surround making you want to seek a gray area between the pipes and the middle so that you are lukewarm but all that really happens is one side of the body is scorched by pipes carrying steam from the three-drum boiler of the HMS Devonshire—built in the span of two years between 1926 and 1927 in the English effort to expand its influence in the Mediterranean perhaps to counteract the expanding Italian navy with their balding bulging eyed _duce _or maybe the French with their militaristic tendencies or just to stir up jobs and continue the notion that the English rule the waves or to modernize its aging pre Great War ships which the royal navy was still largely composed of or to make sure that the Germans never even had a single solitary fucking thought that one day they would have the ability to build up their fleet and take on the English navy and conquer the island and establish their thousand year rule over the Earth—through the ship to propel the monstrosity of metal through the water and the other side of the body was cold.

From the stairs the trio walked directly forward until they arrived at the hold. The leading man spun the door wheel counterclockwise until the hold door cracked open. They entered. Amy only heard the trailing man spin the door back around to lock it.

The hold was, like the majority of the underbelly of the ship, poorly lit. By now their eyes had adjusted to the lack of artificial or natural light and vision was the least of her concerns. Piled high with categorized wooden crates and pallets and barrels and the sort, the room was a floating fire hazard at sea. And more importantly, it was not a place suitable for the shipment of live cargo.

Tails was already on the ground next to crates with 'DRY FOOD' spray painted in white on their sides. The boxes themselves were not stacked in a particular delicate order, and Amy silently worried about them falling on top of Tails if a strong wave hit. She did not have much time to worry before she was shoved down next to him.

Under the cover of darkness, one of the men threatened that "one move from either of you and you're going home in one of those crates!" A sailor on the end whispered something into his neighbor's ear and walked off.

Clearly agitated, Amy retorted "Don't worry, we'll just sit here and let time kill us instead of the water." She placed her back flat against the DRY FOOD crate, crossed her arms and legs and let out a pouty _hmph _with her mouth closed.

"Good, save us the work."

Minutes slowly marched on as a staring contest broke out with Amy in the DRY FOOD corner and the three sailors in the ominous shadow corner. Her lip was puckered to the side like a bassist in the groove, eyes locked dead center with the man in front of her, eyebrows solidly angled. She had practiced this face so many times with Sonic that she did not need to put any thought into maintaining it, and instead thought about other things.

"_I guess we're in some other human world. Not exactly friendly are they. How come when we take these stupid trips around the universe it is never to somewhere fun or pretty? Guess it's nice that they're letting us stay on the boat, could give us a blanket or something. Wow that guy is not happy that we are here, must be Tails, I thought I did myself up this morning pretty okay. I wonder if I should shake him up, he could handle this better than I can. He probably would have talked us out of here by now. If I say another word I might just need to break out my hammer. Good thing I was so worn out when we got on the boat or I might just had started swinging it when they called me a thing. And where did that other guy go? And weren't they supposed to take our heads off or something? Maybe he is looking for a saw. Ugh, god Amy why would you think that. Whatever it's my head I can think whatever I want. If they think we're scary evil aliens now just wait till they try and hurt us. Thinking about it, Tails and I could probably take on this whole ship. Yeah, the SS Rose, I can see it now. Cruising around, looking for Sonic, soaking up the sun, finding the emeralds. I don't think Tails could actually pilot something so, um, primitive as this thing. Like have they heard of lights? Or windows even. Frankly I could spruce things up quite a bit around here while we wait to dock. Where was it, Alex something the captain said. I mean, I think he's the captain. Oldest guy here at least. And where's all the ladies at? I know this is some sort of military boat but come on, this place smells worse than a gym. Hey, he blinked, loser. Maybe now they'll leave us alone... nope."_

The now familiar sound of the wheel door opening rung out as more men entered. Amy did not look to see who it was. Instead they entered her view. First, the sailor who had left returned, and he had shackles in tow. Next, the captain in all his late forties glory. And then what can be described as no less than a mob of seaman, some with their sleeves rolled up, some with barely concealed blunt force objects. Lanky gunman was there too, gun present.

"Their heads still attached?" The captain pointed at the two on the ground with his lit pipe. The red tobacco embers stood out in the dank room.

"Couldn't find the zipper, sir." One of the three sailors said in a deadpan tone.

"_Ha! They're too afraid to touch us. What, do they think we have space influenza?"_

"I see." He took a deep inhale of his pipe and breathed out the smoke towards Amy and Tails. Obnoxiously, he cleared the back of his throat with an uncomfortable sounding gag, and then spit tobacco residue on the ground. The smoke lingered in the air, filling Amy's nose with a sticky cloud. She resisted the urge to scratch and cough to keep her stoic demeanor. He dug into his pocket and retrieved a thick match with a red tip. Curiously, he opened his mouth and stuck the match inside. He brought the match down across the backs of his top incisor teeth with force and conviction. The dwindling embers of his pipe met the now lit match and the two intermixed, bringing more tobacco smoke into the crowded storage room. The captain shook the match to kill the flame, and tossed the burnt stick on the ground with the flick of his thumb. He took a couple more puffs of his pipe before speaking again. "Listen here miss. I don't know why you two are here, and frankly I don't care. If you try to resist, we will not hesitate to bring the situation back under control." He paused. Lanky gunman squeezed around the grip of his pistol. Others around him tapped their various objects of choice in their hands back and forth. "Fasten them."

The sailor with the shackles stepped forward, he did not look excited. He cracked one end of the shackles loose opening it into a claw like shape. "Extend your arms and do not move." He said with an audible shake in his speech. The jitter of the chain bouncing off of its links reflected off each of the holds walls amplifying and making the sound obvious.

Amy sighed. She rolled her eyes, looked down at the floor, and held out her arms akin to a zombie. "Try not to sound too excited." She sarcastically interjected. She did not expect anyone to laugh, her assumption was correct.

With great deliberation, the man crept forward towards the seated girl. The room was quiet except for the sounds of the floor crackling under the sailor's leather boots and the chain dangling against itself. Finally, he snapped the manacle down around Amy's wrist behind her gold bracelet. Given her small arms, he had to twist the lock on the shackle until it was tightened fully, and even then her hands were more loose than protocol would allow. Luckily her disproportionately large hands would prevent her from slipping out. As he loosened the other side, Amy thought about how cold the metal was against her bare arm. Not as bad as the railings or the water, but on that same level. Once he finished binding her other arm, Amy thought it was over. It was not. He reached around his pants and pulled out another pair which had been shoved in his rear pocket. To Amy's surprise, he also joined her legs together. She did not complain at risk of herself and Tails being hurt.

Seeing the show come to an end, the crowd had begun to disperse. The captain stayed behind, still puffing away at his pipe. While the man worked with Tails, Amy quietly pulled her chains taut. They were pristine, clearly never used.

He finished tightening Tails' legs together and marched out of the room without saying a word to the captain. With his departure led to the arrival of men with much more impressive guns than lanky soldier had. Rifles, longer than Amy herself, shining even in the dim glow of the room. They formed around the captain, and they shared an unintelligible conversation between themselves. The jostling Tails experience must have woken him up to a degree, as he rolled onto his side to face Amy. His eyes were still closed. The sailors conversation finished. The captain made his way for the door, and the sailors with rifles pulled up seats out of the shadows and sat near Amy and Tails.

Walking away, the captain made one last comment. "I suggest you get some rest." He exited and tightened the door behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: I have recently started school, so expect chapters to take much longer to be put out. Also, in my original author's note, I made it seem as if this was a Sonic X fic, which it is not. All the characters are based on their game counterparts set after Sonic Forces.**

**Chapter 5: River**

_Meanwhile..._

_**THE PHŒNIX**_

_...We sincerely trust that the influence of President Johnson may be cast in our favor, and that he may be able to defeat the machinations of the radicals in Congress; but if he cannot or does not do so, the South, we fear, is destined to endure a long period of degrading probation, or "taxation without representation," and of subordination of civil rule to martial law._

In the span of my blink, the floor must have become grown over with grass. Rather than thud off the wooden ground, I became wrapped in a grassy knoll. The shoots wrapped themselves up my suddenly dry fur legs, constricted around, and pulled my body prone on the green carpet. Even with my face pressed into the grass and dirt, no pinegrove smells or woody tastes, just the sensation of grass tendrils slithering over my fur. I would shout if I could open my mouth. Grass slithered across my cheeks sliding back and forth as it inched up higher and higher across my head.

"Aaammphfgh… ahMMMM!" Like a rabid eel navigating a pipe, the stalk forced its way into my triangle ears, filled my ear canal, and anchored itself in my head. I was trapped.

I feel could myself rising. My head pulled back as if someone had grappled my fur and yanked back. Soon my back followed the movement of my head and then my legs and feet. I was upright. Held up by my ear canals, body wrapped in grass and vines.

My feet were loose, and I could not help but start kicking in the only form of rebellion I had at my disposal. My eyes were covered, but occasionally cold light found its way inside. I kept my mouth closed.

I lurched back, the creature and I were moving. It was delicate, purposeful, a sense of destination. In a way, I felt like nothing really had changed. Wrapped up somewhere I didn't belong, following.

It squeezed. Like piano wire across my forehead and a straitjacket around my torso and tourniquets on my arms and manacles between my tails but nothing around my feet, my feet were free. The shoots in my ears pressed down harder against the walls of my innards and jabbed at my eardrum like a nervous person with a cotton swab. It was if the creature was searching for a way to my brain, probing around, searching around. Looking to taint, looking to corrupt.

The little light that would reach my eyes dulled out into a red-yellow glow.

Suddenly the slithers reversed. I hadn't realized how much my lungs were compressed until I took a breath without constriction. The cocoon which had wrapped around myself was becoming undone, bottom to top. Before long, my arms were free and gripping at the grass still engulfing my head. I struggled. Kicking violently towards unknown nothingness beneath me and pulling around my head. Not only to free myself from the clutches of the creature, but also as to not be supporting my body weight with solely my head.

Thinking fast I ripped off my right glove and began to use my claws to dig into the grass at the crown of my head. My fingers dug into the flesh of the plant. Down my hand ran a warm liquid substance but I could not stop. I reached by head, stabbing myself with all five of my exposed fingers. Another warm liquid substance ran down my hand. Cutting through plant and skin, I dragged my hand down across my face ripping through all that was in my way, including myself. Blood and plant ooze coated by hand and face. My eyes could finally reach light but my vision was obscured due to my landscaping.

Before I could slide across my lips, the plant began to relinquish its hold on my head. Parts uncoiled with audible snaps in the distance. My mouth was freed, and then my chin.

Two vines encircled my neck, the one from my left encircled clockwise while the one from my right encircled counterclockwise. Curiously, rather than slither themselves counterclockwise and clockwise respectively to let go of my neck—as I would have expected given how the plant was letting go of the rest of my head—the vines instead twisted themselves further clockwise and further counterclockwise. Surprisingly, I did not feel the additional pressure of my neck being further constricted. Infact, I did not feel anything. The two grass vines ran around under my head and snapped off in the distance. I was falling, so I began to spin my tails. And that's when I saw them: my tails.

My tails, my legs, everything below the neck really. My body falling away from me. A precious thing I lost. And then my head kept rotating so the rest of my body fell out of my line of sight. I was now looking up at the sky, the empty black sky. Before I could linger on about how it was still bright outside, my head continued to turn to face the wall I was apparently tumbling down from the top of. The entire wall was composed of uniform stairs: deep dives and then shallow landings all the way down. I turned still. The ground. It was as if the ground was climbing towards me rather than descending myself. It was unremarkable, just a rolling plain. A ways down my more aerodynamically abled body careened towards this plain. I turned. The red-yellow sky. In the center of the sky an uneven circle of primarily generic computer red, with it being encircled by sunset orange all around. I turned. The wall was entirely made of clusters of various rusting metals. The corners of the stairs where especially rusted. Red-tipped, crusted over, jagged, waiting for bloody baptism. I turned.

I never thought of myself to be particularly thick-skulled, but alas I am for I shattered clean through the river ice which had materialized below me. And the sheet was thick too. I had time to recognize the fact I was plowing through ice before I reached the frigid water hiding beneath. I am an okay swimmer, but like Sonic I tend to stay away from willingly getting into water. So today was really not my day. I could hardly make out the tip of my nose as my head sank into the water. The surrounding darkness made it difficult to make out if the rest of my body made it down with me. Obviously the lack of air did not particularly bother me, I did not have a set of lungs at the moment and I was still doing fine. I could not believe how loud it was in the water. The sounds of pistons pumping back and forth and serpentine belts rubbing on engine blocks bounced off water particles and into my ears.

Further and further I sank, occasionally brushing past a cold-water minnow or bumping the back of my head into a scrap of metal garbage. My eyes became acclimated to the darkness and before long I could see the sandy underwater dune I was drifting too.

Resting on the small hill of sand and soil was the rest of my body sprawled out like some sad, tired headless horseman. My tails slowly flowed backwards with the current but the rest of my body held steadfast in the ground. I could figure how this was going to play out so I just waited.

I drifted slowly through the water, my head rolling to face towards the bed of the river. Leeches dug themselves out of the ground and began swimming like scrolls in the wind towards my body. They swam underneath my head, shadowing my movement towards myself.

I reached out. My hands embrace my head. I grip between my jawline and the top of my head for the most firm hold I could have over myself. The leeches lunged out and attached themselves to my head and slither towards my throat cavity. Not wanting to risk losing my head batting the parasites away, I forcibly slotted my head onto my exposed neck stem and gave it a good twist in a neck crack motion. The connection was loose, and the moment I eased up my hands my head began to drift. I pushed back down.

The creatures crawled down my head until they reached the point where my neck meets my head. They encircled it, slithering around the slice. They lined themselves up head to tails, leaving no gap between themselves and bit down. Half their teeth stabbed into my neck and the other half stab into my head. They clamped down and immediately begin sucking away.

My first thought was not of the pain from the leeches, but rather the sudden realization I now had practically empty lungs and was going to drown. I pushed my hands down to spring myself off the ground, kicked down against the sand and aimed up. Luckily my tails were undamaged so I could use them as a bodily propeller to increase my speed upwards. I swatted away at the frigid water, bumping my head into chunks of ice which seemed purpose placed to impede my progress. Metal bits slid across my arms and legs with a piece stabbing into my side. I was too preoccupied with not drowning to worry about the metal in my side. The visibility began to increase at a rate linked with the decrease of oxygen in my body. So while everything was getting brighter, the edges of my sight began to fade.

I puffed my cheeks in and out rapidly to trick my brain into thinking I had air and made a final push forward. The cold cold cold glow let off by the ice began to penetrate through my skin, sending a bolt of frost down my back.

Instinctively, I looked back down into the depths to spot a vine climbing up towards me. It spiraled up the water to form a vine helix with grass sprouting out the edges of the monster. It coiled back down for a brief moment, and shot up like a spring. The helix straightened out like someone throwing a chain. It ignored the water, darting clean through without receiving drag or taking in water. Dodging any metal scraps or ice chunks it aimed for my head. I no longer had the energy to move.

I crashed through the ice, the vine once again around my neck. I could not even breath yet since my windpipe was in the process of being crushed. I gagged and gripped around my neck. My hands were coated in leech juice and blood from the parasites being crushed between the vine and my neck. No matter how much clawing I would do, the vine remained unharmed.

I looked down to see if I could bite any part of the vine and that's when I remembered I was currently being impaled with a chunk of metal in my side.

Without worrying about slicing my hand, I reached down and took grip of the shard. The slow methodical process of removing a puncture wound had to be sped up for me, so I hastily removed the metal scrap in a swift move. I could tell I cut both my hand up and more of my body but I could not care at the moment.

Without a moment to spare I brought the makeshift knife between my torso and the vine and sliced forward. The metal slid almost a quarter of the way into the vine, causing the creature to rapidly convulse, shaking me back and forth in the air. It tightened its grip around me in its last ditch effort to kill me. But I was not going to have it, I could not have it. I slid the scrap back and forth in a saw motion, all the while applying pressure forward. My vision was failing but my arms were not.

The vine shook and slammed me into the ice below, lifted me up and did it again. I could not drop the metal, so I squeezed down harder into the jagged tool. Green and red painted the ice beneath us and reminded me that it was it or me.

With the back of my head pounded into the ice, the creature began to slide back into the chilled water with me in tow. My feet were facing towards the water, so when the vine began to recede it snapped my body upright before then sending me face down into the frozen ground.

As the water approached, I slid my free hand down across the vine to find my cut mark. My finger slipped into the oozing crevasse leaking out goop. The various fluids made it difficult to position the knife in place, but that was not going to stop me. With one final slice, I cut through the vine. Both ends thrashed about from being cut through, but I was free.

My momentum still carried me into the water, with my back plowing into the corner of the ice. I was pumped full of adrenaline by this point, so the pain did not bother me. Like a drunk scuba-diver I tumbled into the water.

I breathed out a sigh of relief, and I must have forgotten I was in a river since I breathed back in and filled my mouth with water. I swallowed and resurfaced.

The metal was still attached to my hand even when I was fully unclenched, so I had to pull the shard out with my free hand. I tossed the soaked metal down into the water and watched it tumble into darkness. Remembering what was down there, I latched onto the icy edges and pulled myself up.

Once above, free of any water prison or a mephistophelian creature, I realized how screwed I was. My hand was flayed and my torso had an extra hole in it. And at the same time I was going into shock and the starting stages of hypothermia.

I sat down and covered my bleeding side with my bleeding hand to temporarily fix two problems.

"...Smoke?" On the edge of the frozen river were trees. Ferns, spruces, pines, the whole deal. They were all on fire. Their trunks were essentially replaced with flames, their leaves dancing away ablaze. Both sides of the river, the same patterns of trees, all in perpetual flames. The cliff I had fallen off of was nowhere in sight, the horizon was rather the frozen river or lit trees. Excluding the hole in the river and the graffiti of fluid splattered about, there was perfect symmetry between the two sides.

And then there was me, dying alone in the middle of a classical representation of Hell.

There was no chance I could stand, so I leaned onto my knees and began to spin my tails to slowly slide myself across the ice towards the fire. The friction between my legs and the ice was low, so in no time I was off towards the warmth.

Soon it was less holoska and more skin melting. In my greed for heat, I failed to slow myself down before it was too late. I planted my free hand on the edge of the river but all that did was spin me around so I flew into the trees backwards.

So there I was, falling backwards into a flaming forest. Bleeding all over, unable to properly breath. A skin bubbling heat surrounded me and smoke filled my eyes and mouth. At least I didn't have a metal chunk inside me or a monster strangling my neck or my body falling away from me. I hoped my head would hit the tree so hard I would knock myself out so I would not have to experience burning to death. Here I went.

-. . .-.. / - . -.. -.. - / -.. . .-.. / -.-. .- - - .. -. / -.. .. / -. - ... - .-. .- / ...- .. - .-

_March 12, 1938_

_**SPANISH TROOPS ENCIRCLE TOWN**_

_Hendaye, France, (at the Spanish frontier) March 12 (AP)—Spanish insurgent troops encircled the town of Quinto tonight, between Belchite and Hijar, on the eastern drive to split the government-held seaboard. _

Without any warning, Tails' head slammed back against the crate of dry food him and Amy were chained to.

"Ow!" exclaimed Tails, shattering the silence of words which had been present in the hold of the ship. Amy shot up from her exhaustion based nap and flung her head around to find the cause of both the voice and booming noise of head against empty crate.

"TAILS! You're awake! Thank goodness, I was really getting worried there." She was both happy to see that tails was fine and happy to have someone nice to talk too. "Is your head okay? It sounded like you hit it pretty hard."

He did not pay attention to his head. Instead, Tails looked down at is hands, rotating them around and examining them. The chain jiggled, Tails did not notice. He felt his torso with one hand and felt around his neck with the other.

"Hey, you alright Tails?"

"Oh, uh yeah, I'm fine. I was just having a weird dream, that's all." He rested his head back against the wood and began to look around. His eyes darted back and forth from crate to wooden beam, and then to the shackles around his arms and legs. Blankly, he pulled his hands back and forth causing the chain to snap into a straight line. "Amy?"

"Yeah? Oh right, we got captured. This is some military boat. They say if we try anything they'll shoot us because they think we're aliens." She let out a half hearted chuckle at this thought.

"The guys over there" she motioned towards two armed guards sitting at a table across from them, "say we are going to Alexandria and ignore everything else I say. I have a suspicion they don't like us." One of the two had his head down, presumably sleeping. The other was thumbing through a softcore magazine he must have snuck onto the boat, and was ignoring the conversation the two were sharing.

"Humans?"

"Yeah, but not the ones that used to be on our planet." The magazine man's face scrunched up. Amy realized she could have worded that better.

"Hmm, we must have traveled through dimensions. If these humans look the same but they have never seen a talking hedgehog before, we might share a common heritage but a clear moment of division." Tails eyed the man up and down. There was no doubt in his mind that these humans were the same as the ones that used to live on their planet.

"Maybe the emeralds wiped their memory?"

"I couldn't tell you. Hopefully this will all make sense one day. And hopefully we can find Sonic." The man pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He exhaled up in the air and watched the smoke dissipate in the dim light above him.

Amy just smiled faintly, nodded, and sounded off without opening her mouth.

-. . .-.. / - . -.. -.. - / -.. . .-.. / -.-. .- - - .. -. / -.. .. / -. - ... - .-. .- / ...- .. - .-

It was dark and the ground was cold. The clearing that Sonic had passed out in was largely unchanged since the morning. The bird noises had been replaced with cricket noises, the river still ran, and a hedgehog was still lying on the floor.

"Mmhm…" Sonic's lips smacked against each other, he could not stand their dryness. His head hurt and his eyes were heavy, but he slowly leaned forward to sit upright.

He looked at his now closed wound and admired his work for a moment.

"Hey, not too shabby. How does moving it feel ye-!" A burst of motion started tumbling through his stomach towards his mouth. Sonic twisted his back to the side and lurched over, and began to vomit. His rookie liver was not used to being needed, it seemed.

Once he finished, Sonic fell back against the ground and looked up at the sky. A sole dark cloud filled the sky, its rolling hills blocking out any chance to see the moon. He traced along the curves of the cloud with his eyes, imagining himself running down its hills, curling up into a ball at the tops and rolling down. Sonic remembered that clouds were made of water, and his imaginary self fell through the surface to never to be seen again.

"I gotta get going." He sat up again, and carefully placed his hand from his newly stitched arm on the ground. He applied pressure to see if it was still hurting. It was, but nothing unmanageable anymore.

Once on his feet, Sonic brushed off the dirt and grass which had stuck into his quills while he was passed out. Sonic made his way to where the fire once was and pulled out a half burnt stick. He found a large rock on the ground and stood over it.

Wielding the stick like a brush, Sonic drew a crude picture of himself out of charcoal on the stone.

"Okay, so I'm... somewhere. And also somewhere… " he drew an egg-shape on one side of him, and an outline of an emerald on the other side. "...Is Eggman and the Chaos Emeralds." Carefully, he drew two small circles on the egg to represent Eggman's glasses. He filled in the Emerald with charcoal black, and then wrote '* 7' next to it.

"Likely, Eggman will be looking for the Emeralds also. So really, it doesn't matter if I look for the Emeralds or Eggman first, find one and I'll run into the other. Eggman shouldn't have any of his 'bots, so I don't need to worry too much about him for now." At the corner of the stone, he drew the outline of Tails and Amy's faces. "And are they here? There must have been some sort of explosion, and Tails would've known what it was. And if Amy wasn't dropped off yet, she would've come along. They'll come looking for me first."

Sonic thought for a second, trying to schedule an itinerary for himself.

"If I can find just one Emerald, I can track down the rest…" Sonic drew a circle around the Emerald, and then exed out Eggman. "...And if Tails and Amy find an Emerald, I'll run into them. So it's settled, look for Emeralds, beat up Eggman if I see him, nab Tails and Amy if they're here, and go home."

Sonic smiled at the idea that he just made a plan, but it did not last long.

"Great, now I need to find an Emerald." He brought his hand to his face, deeply groaning at the prospect of tracking an Emerald down by himself. "I should have paid more attention whenever Tails or Knuckles tried to teach me about how the Emeralds spread themselves out. Something about population centers and energy loss. I need to find a computer."

Finished with his art, Sonic tossed the stick back to where the fire once stood, and ran back into the forest.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Ulm I**

_March 14, 1938_

_**Mob of 25,000 Riots at London in Nazi Protest**_

_LONDON, MARCH 13. (U.P.) More than 25,000 angry Laborites and a sprinkling of Communist supporters fought hand-to-hand with reserves of mounted and foot police outside the white-stone German Embassy tonight, shouting "Hitler is driving Europe to war!"_

Between taking care of his stitched arm, avoiding roads, and surviving off the fruits of the forests, Sonic's trek towards any large town had been slow and arduous. He did not want to risk being spotted again, given the getting shot that happened last time he was seen, so Sonic had to take more precautions than usual. It was making him anxious. In the two days, Sonic estimated he had only traversed around fifty miles. Also not helping his anxiety was that he had been waiting the better part of the day for nightfall to sneak into the city he had found.

Based on the signs outside the city, he correctly guessed the city's name to be 'Ulm'. The day prior, Sonic had come across the widest road he had seen on this planet and shadowed it from afar until he reached the city.

He was hanging off the side of a tall pine a ways off from the edge of the city, waiting for everyone to go to sleep. The town itself was not all too large. It was tightly compact and radiating the distant past. The stone buildings that were sprinkled in the interior of the city reminded Sonic of stereotypical medieval times. In the middle of the city stood a building unlike any he had seen on either his planet or this one. A rectangular, brick, monolithic structure with multiple stone towers coming out each side of the building. High arches covered and flanked the entrance, multi-paneled glass murals glimmered under the last light of the setting sun. But most impressive was the steeple coming out the top of the entrance. Even at a distance, Sonic could tell by the subtle changes in lighting across the tower that much detail went into the design of the whole tower structure. The top of the spire was over three times as high off the ground as the primary red-tiled roof. Sonic knew the first thing he was going to do once he entered the city was climb to the top of the steeple.

The lack of streetlights signaled to Sonic that his plan to find a computer was unlikely to come to fruition for a couple more decade's minimum if at all. He did not have that much time, so Sonic settled for finding a world map or an atlas.

Gradually, the bustle of downtown Ulm quieted down with its civilians leaving the stone streets for their homes. Once the sounds of wind whistling through trees and grass replaced the movements of the city, Sonic knew it was time to move in. He swung himself on the tree to have his shoulder facing towards the city and kicked off against the bark, launching himself towards the storybook city.

Sonic's legs were already in motion when they hit the ground. Chunks of grass and dirt were ejected behind Sonic into the tree he where he was perched prior, and on March 14, 1938, at 11:37 P.M., Sonic became the first living thing on Earth to break the sound barrier. A conical burst of wind blasted into the surrounding flora from the shockwave of the sonic boom razing the more loose brush from the ground. His rapid acceleration forced his arms backwards, but Sonic did not let up for one second. He leaned forward into the air to decrease the surface area the wind bounced off of, aerodynamically giving his body an advantage. He sliced through the crisp early spring air, sliding past the oxygen atoms meandering in his path. The 770 mile per hour breeze Sonic was generating pushed any glimmer of warmth off his body, especially around his non gloved hand, but he did not care.

The city rapidly approached. Sonic stuck his feet out to go into a controlled slide while he scanned the city for the best way to make it to the top of the steeple he had spotted from outside of Ulm. Two jumps, he decided, was all he needed to make it onto the steeple.

His sliding feet transitioned from the grass onto the pavement of a road heading into the city; the extra friction stopped Sonic near the center of the road. He continued towards the city in what Sonic would self describe as a quick jog.

His slower speeds allowed Sonic to lightly peruse the city as he approached. Like the last town he was in, red flags were adorned from the sides of many of the buildings, all centered with the same black 'X' with its crooked ends as the last town. Every window and door was closed, Sonic attributed this to the time and weather. The streets themselves were empty of life. While empty of life, plenty of cars lined the sides of the narrow streets. They would be his first jump. He approached at an angle, coming from the right side of the street towards the driver side headlight. He kicked off the street with his left foot, brought his right knee up to his chest, sailed across the street towards the parked vehicle, and drove his right foot down onto the hood of the car to propel himself upwards. The shock absorbers behind the wheels were exceptionally tight, as Sonic felt little give as he jumped off the car. Still, the jump gave enough height for the hedgehog to leap from the car onto the rooftop of a nearby building without needing to pull himself up from the side.

Immediately, Sonic began slipping down off the rooftop. It was slanted and tiled, two things Sonic had not noticed from the streets. He began swinging in arms in circles, trying to balance himself forward as he began teetering over the edge of the roof. His foot slipped back, a tile came loose, it fell towards the ground below. Sonic planted his foot on the newfound landing below where the tile was. In rapid succession, his mind flickered from his foot, the tile, to the car below.

"KARASH!" The stone tile plummeted through the glass windshield, filling the peaceful March air with a sound reminiscent of a mirror being tossed off a cliff into a bed of hammers. The insides of Sonic's ears felt as those they had been pried open, and then jabbed with a crosshead screwdriver continuously as the glass shattered onto the seats of the car. Sonic's eyes widened, his teeth ground against each other, and he froze. Slowly, he turned back, and looked down.

"...Uh-oh." The driver's seat had cushioned the tiles landing ensuring that the tile was still in one piece. The windshield, however, was in a worse off shape. Rather than remaining in one piece, like the tile, the windshield had transformed from one continuous, transparent mold into thousands of little glass flakes. While some chunks of glass clung onto the frame of the windshield, many of the fragments found themselves puncturing into the seat, seated on the seat, or scattered about across the car's hood or on the road. As the hood had been washed, clay barred, and waxed only days prior, the glass laying on top of the pristine hood transformed from simple chunks of glass into low strength mirrors. And Sonic only saw one thing in those hundreds of mirrors on the hood: himself. Sonic was no stranger to collateral damage to public property, even specifically cars, so his next actions were a surprise only to the unfortunate owner of the vehicle.

Once Sonic had taken the angle of the rooves into account, as well as placing his feet more carefully across the tiles, running across the tops of the buildings became trivial. His extended gait alongside the compact inner city design allowed Sonic to move from rooftop to rooftop in a single, natural stride, so he did not add to his mental 'Ulm Jump Count'. He dodged the occasional smoke stack and took care not to accidentally kick any pots sowed with edelweiss (Sonic's least favorite plant) off the ledges of the gables jutting out of the buildings.

Sonic quickly traversed over the rooftops until he reached near the center of the city where the brick temple stood. He stopped on the edge of a rooftop to admire the structure with its steeple seemingly stretching up into heaven. Upon closer inspection, Sonic noticed that the steeple itself had plenty of spirals coming out of it, with each of the spirals topped with what appeared to be a 't' shape much akin to a sword sticking straight up out of the ground. Sonic could not wait to catapult himself off the objects higher up the building. There was an expansive brick courtyard surrounding the ministry, so to reach the roof of the building Sonic would need to expend his second jump. He walked to the opposite edge of the roof he was standing on, lined up with the brick building across the courtyard, and began running. Three steps, right foot, left, right again, and he jumped.

In order to achieve the distance to clear the courtyard, vertical height had to be sacrificed. Coupled with how the roof of the ministry was higher off the ground than the building Sonic was standing on, and Sonic could not simply jump from roof to roof like previously. Knowing this, Sonic extended his arms in midair, and began scanning the building for spots to latch onto. Luckily for Sonic, directly above the entrance were small stone statues serving as decorative lining for the arch of the entrance, statues which could easily be grasped with large hedgehog hands. He reached out with his arms towards the heads of the statues, and palmed the skulls of the statues with both his unwashed gloved and non-gloved hands.

A bolt of agony shot through Sonic's stitched wound as his hand gripped down against the statue. The muscles in his arm contracted to hold onto the statue and support the weight of Sonic's body swinging under the arch. His skin on the arm expanded, the stitches dug into his flesh to hold the wound shut. Despite his natural urges to yell out, Sonic gritted his teeth and relinquished his hold of the statue with his one arm. Being strong enough to easily support his weight with just one arm, Sonic silently chastised himself for over exerting his injured arm.

Glancing at the statues, Sonic took note how all were sculpted with sharp crowns, flowing robes, and eyes which looked past you. He imagined that whoever they are, they were all dead by now.

Using his one arm, Sonic pulled down on his grappled statue, lifting his body until his arm was extended fully beneath him. He then lifted his legs, placed his feet on the statues to the sides of himself. Carefully, he released his grip of the statue, and brought himself to a stand against the brick side holding up the statues. Sonic shifted his eyes up, as to not affect his center of gravity by moving his unproportionally large head backwards, to discover that the start of the steeple proper was only a couple feet above. The base of the steeple was outlined with a shallow landing similar to the rooves of the other buildings of Ulm. Sonic gently pressed down against the statues with his feet to confirm that they would be able to support himself before hopping up to grab onto and pull himself onto the landing above.

Rising to his feet, Sonic was confronted with an expansive display of stained glass. Each pane was carefully crafted to ensure the window could sustain itself in the turbulent weather changes of southern Germany while working with the lead separators which were precisely placed for maximum survivability of the work of art. Sonic, understanding the risk he posed on the priceless works of arts, decided not to stick around.

From the roof to the top of the steeple were a multitude of stone pillars spaced out just enough that a normal human would not be able to stretch out their body to wedge themselves between the pillars to slowly ascend the building. As Sonic was neither human nor normal, he decided the best course of action was to repeatedly wall jump up the pillars until he reached the top. He placed himself in between two pillars near the center of the roof, looked straight on towards one of the pillars, cracked his knuckles, gave a solid pull to each of his legs, and jumped forwards towards the stone column. Just before contact, he twisted his body to face away from the pillar before letting his hand catch the face of the rock. His feet went flat against the stones, giving Sonic a brief window of time to kick off against the pillar to reach the next post. He kicked down against the pillar, sending him higher into the air. He turned his body once more to catch the next stone pillar, and repeated the process. His wounded arm could support being pressed against the column, so Sonic knew he had not re-injured his arm catching the statue earlier. To one side was the city of Ulm, with its medieval architecture and glass covered roads, and the other was the minister of Ulm, with its medieval architecture and glass covered sides. Sonic was too focused on not falling to wonder at the beauty of either the city or the minister.

Eventually, the pillars reached the roof of the next section of the steeple, so Sonic had to jump off an angle to catch the next roof. He pulled himself up, took care not to break the second set of stained glass, spotted more pillars and continued his climb. In the back of his mind, Sonic imagined how cool it would be to have a drone following him up with a camera, taping him jumping between pillars with the stained glass in the background. He reached the next roof attached to the pillars. Again, he leaped off at an angle to grab the third section of the steeple and pulled himself up. The stained glass in this section was in fact not stained glass, but regular see-through glass, and any pillars that were present were merely cosmetic, as well as embedded into the side of the building, preventing Sonic from scaling them with any wall kicks. Sonic placed his face against the glass—careful not to break it in a freak accident—and peered into the building. Due to it being midnight, Sonic was unable to discern more than a few lone support beams under the dull moonlight.

Sonic decided that rather than meticulously scaling the rest of the building, he would fling himself up to the top using the 't' shaped objects coming out the sides of the walls. Sonic would later learn that what he was about to do would generally be considered blasphemous. He jumped up, grasped the cross with both hands, and planted his feet against the side of the church so he was hanging beneath the cross, and tugged down against the stone cross to test for stability. Satisfied with knowing that he was not about to damage more property, Sonic tensed up his legs, began flexing his arms, and in one synchronized motion, kicked off against the minister while pulling down against the cross. To compensate for both the horizontal acceleration he had gained from kicking off the wall and the steeple angling inwards to meet at a center point five hundred thirty feet off the ground, Sonic held onto the cross for an extra moment to redirect the horizontal movement upwards and slightly forwards. He pushed off with his hands and he was in the air. While this method of transportation was less efficient than scaling the building using more traditional methods such as slotting feet into nooks and pulling with the hands on ledges, Sonic figured it was more fun.

With the peak in sight, the still airborne hedgehog smirked at his climbing abilities before reaching out to grab hold of and climb on top of another cross coming out of the tower. The rest of the steeple was built like a hexagonal pyramid with various gothic crosses and swirls decorating the stone sides. With supreme balance, Sonic hopped off his cross onto a higher up cross, just planting one foot before jumping to the next. And after one last jump, Sonic planted his foot on the final skyward cross. Only clouds, the moon, and stars hung overhead. Not worried about falling, he brought his feet together and rose upright.

A breeze rustled through Sonic's blue quills introducing a soft whistle into the dry air. No sounds emanated from the city below, only wind and whistle whispered into Sonic's ears. Now aloft to Ulm as well as the entire Württemberg state (excluding the Alps) he could survey the city for a library to find a map or an encyclopedia.

Lacking much electrical street light architecture, it was difficult for Sonic to make out more than the overall shape of the buildings and the materials the structures were primarily made from. The collective dark mass that defined the city made Sonic wish he had summited the church during the daytime so he could have enjoyed the view. It was like viewing a black and white photograph in a dark room, the definition of the landscape existed but its beauty and characteristics did not. He could have squinted and made up features to fill in the desires of his brain, but it would have been mental vandalism of the world. Sonic reminded himself that just minutes prior he had shattered a window before immediately running off performing actual vandalism to the world. Refocused, he began his search for which buildings to investigate for a library. Any building which had thatch walls were crossed off Sonic's mental list of buildings to investigate, as were the single family homes which dotted the outskirts of town. All of the buildings located towards the center of Ulm which bore striking resemblance to each other were struck off, leaving Sonic with the few structures both unique and large scattered across the city. Of the buildings, the most striking of the bunch was the sprawling, presidential palace-esque, multi-winged behemoth a distance south of the church. While it was the furthest away of the buildings Sonic planned to visit, it being the only one with proper illumination made it stand out among the rest.

After giving one last fleeting glance across the city to confirm that Sonic had not missed any potential targets, he hopped down from cross to cross to the edge of the hexagonal pyramid which made up the top of the spire before jumping off the building entirely. Having strong knees—as hedgehogs are famous for—Sonic did not give much thought before jumping down five hundred feet onto the brick courtyard below. During the fall Sonic reminded himself to brace the impact using his left arm, but besides that the only other thing he gave thought to was the dim light which had sprung to life near the window he had broken. Sonic landed.

"Guess I should go and try and cool things off with the locals, and here I thought my actions had no consequences." Figuring that he was going to be seen anyways, Sonic skipped traveling by roof and just took the streets. For what it was worth, his first planned building to visit was in the direction of the vehicle he had vandalised so he would not be wasting much time.

As Sonic rounded the corner the car was parked on, he discovered the dim light had grown into multiple dim lights all surrounding the vehicle. With less grace than Sonic would have preferred, he ducked down into an alley between buildings to figure out how to defuse the crowd which had formed.

"_Shoot! Just what I need, a mob. Why couldn't've they made the roofs out of stronger stuff?" _Sheepishly, Sonic poked his head around the corner of the alley to make a count of the group. "_...Four, five. And they all have electric lanterns, guess they didn't have plans to burn the car down which would have been convenient for me. Okay, I run out there, start waving my hands back and forth, point up at the roof, point back at me, walk my fingers across my palm, point down from the roof to the car, hand explosion. Universal language. And hopefully they are in shock the whole time so I can explain and run off. Okay, go team."_

Happy with his well thought out plan, Sonic jumped back onto the street from the alley and bolted in front of the group. Their lanterns shook back and forth from the wind Sonic stirred up, and one nightcap came flying off the blond head of one of the men. Each person looked wildly back and forth to find the cause of the sudden burst of wind until, one by one, each settled upon the three foot, blue hedgehog waving his hands back and forth with a dopey smile across his face.

"Was zu Hölle…." The man with the now exposed dirty blond hair murmured, voice faltering upon the realization of what was standing in front of him. No one else spoke. Standing with their heads slightly forward and their mouths ajar, the group was flabbergasted. Someone lost grip of a cinder block; the thud between the block and road colliding created the only noise beside the hum of the electric lanterns.

"I know you can't understand me, but whatever I like talking." Their shock would not last for long, so Sonic jumped into his prepared speech. "I jumped onto this roof to avoid the streets," he aimed his finger up to the roof before twisting his finger around to point back at himself, "and when I landed up there, the shoddy craftsmanship of the roof caused a brick to fall." With exaggeration, Sonic strutted his fingers across his palm, before switching mid-sentence to pointing back at the roof. "And unfortunately, someone parked their ride in a high risk zone, and there was nothing I could do." He dragged his finger down to point at the car before making an explosion gesture with his hands. "So while I would love to speak to a lawyer and get this sorted out, I have to find some mystical rocks that can control time and space, now if you'll excu-!"

A man from the back shoved his way past the other five men, fire and brimstone in his eyes, teeth ready to shatter under the pressure of his jaw biting down, and swung his lantern towards the head of the hedgehog babbling away in front of the group. If the metal case of the lantern had collided with Sonic's skull, he likely would have been incapacitated, but Sonic simply leaned back to avoid the blow. The momentum of the man carried him forward towards Sonic; Sonic stepped to the side. Not prepared to miss, the man stumbled towards the ground, but caught himself before potentially face planting onto the street.

With a rage in his voice that could only be caused by someone shattering your windshield, the flustered man yelled back towards the group, "Hol ihn!" before swinging at Sonic, again, which he dodged, again.

Spurred on by the man, the rest of the group charged towards the hedgehog. Two swung out with their lanterns, another with his fists, and the final with the brick he had dropped. All aimed at the common target of a three foot tall creature standing just beyond arm's reach. They stepped forward, brought down their weapon of choice at the hedgehog, and found they had hit nothing. In reality, there was nothing to hit, since Sonic had repositioned himself behind the mass of people the moment they began to swing downwards with their weapons.

"Look, I understand why you're mad..." Sonic tilted his head to the side to avoid the brick being thrown at his head, "but I really gotta go." Satisfied with the outcome of the encounter, Sonic decided to take his leave.

The building Sonic had decided to scope out was away from downtown proper, but the distance was not of concern to the hedgehog. Under the assumption that there would be no one else out on the streets—so long as he did not shatter any more windshields—Sonic coasted down the street at a gentle two hundred miles an hour. Two river bridge crossings and a minute later, and he had arrived at what was essentially a castle sans walls.

Of concern to Sonic, who was sliding to a stop, was the multitude of flags hanging limp against the side of the building. They were the same red, white, and black flags as the ones downtown and the flags in the previous town. Under the harsh glow of the rare street light, the collection of flags held a dominating presence. Without worrying about anyone hearing, Sonic spoke.

"Well, rather a political building or some sort of flag collector. Not a whole lot of variety there bud." Not desperate enough to try knocking on the front door, Sonic looped around to the back of the building to see if any windows were open or if any other entrance was present. While no windows were open, the back door seemed more promising than barging in through the main entrance. He placed his ear against the door to try and hear if any movement was occurring inside, but the only noise that Sonic could make out was the blood rushing through his head. Unable to think of any brighter ideas, he tried turning the door knob, and to his shock, it turned and opened the door. "_Vandalism, breaking and entering, and trespassing. Great going Sonic." _

Like a bad cliche, the door slowly swung back with a constant creak piercing the silence in the air. The room that was revealed was no more than a thin hallway lacking any decoration or lighting. With his eyes already adjusted to the darkness, Sonic did not waste any time before stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

Slowly poking his head around the corner of the hallway, Sonic was greeted with an assortment of general purpose tools. This section of the building must have been for the maintenance crew, he assumed. Knowing that robbery was only if you keep something, Sonic had no qualms about digging through the mix of screwdrivers and pliers and hammers and spanners and etc. until he found a flashlight. The back had a strap to hook onto a shirt's button, but given Sonic's near total nudity, it was going to be used as a handheld. He twisted the knob at the bottom of the light to test out its abilities, shined it to the end of the room, and twisted it back off.

At the end of the second room stood another, much larger, door. Really, it was a double door, with each side reflecting the ornate patterns of the other. There was no door knob, just a simple handle on each side. The door was locked, but fortunately the lock was on Sonics side of the door, so he simply unlatched the lock and pushed the doors open.

For Sonic, it felt like uncovering a hidden chamber in a pyramid when he saw what was on the other side of the door. A tall, rectangular room, with painted murals adoring the ceiling and every wall of the room. Marble posts rounded the perimeter of the room, swapping between the colors of sapphire and aquamarine in sets of four, flowing patterns of clouded waves on each. The floor, also marble, had the illusion of ascending cubes carved into it. In the middle of each side of the room stood two statues, also marble, dressed in flowing robes and with noble, yet stern, looks upon their faces.

Sonic stepped into the middle of the room to marvel at the painted ceiling. First to catch his eye were the two nude people, man and woman, standing under a tree. Both looked terrified, presumably due to the snake with a head of a human slithering down the tree towards them. Slightly disturbed, but impressed, Sonic had to force himself to look away and return to his search. He twisted his flashlight on and aimed it around the room where he saw the most beautiful thing yet: a bookshelf. In fact, every wall had multiple bookshelves, and the room had a second level with even more bookshelves. Sonic never considered himself the reader type, but he was overjoyed to see such a large selection of literature.

Of course, he could not read any of the spines of the books. Lots of the titles did not even have text on their spines, just a dull dusted over leather cover wrapping the whole book. But the strategy was simple, encyclopedias are big, so pull out the largest books and rifle through them. Sonic ran from shelf to shelf, pulling out the biggest book from each bookshelf and towering them in the center of the room. Before long, Sonic had amassed a collection of texts with each nearing a thousand pages in length. He plopped himself down on the cold marble floor and pulled the top book off the multiple feet tall stack.

"Heilige… Schrift. Sounds like a fun read." Greeting Sonic on every page as he thumbed through the book were either neatly structured blocks of unintelligible text, or the occasional drawing of men in some perplexing situation with golden disks floating behind their heads. Not seeing any maps, Sonic decided the book was worthless to him and gently slid the book towards the bookshelf the he took it off of.

This pattern continued for the next dozen-odd books. Sonic would pull a book off the top, skip through large chunks looking for maps, and would disappointingly slide the books on the ground towards their home bookshelf. In a rhythmic and systematic groove of page turn and book sliding, the hedgehog nearly gave the same treatment to the black bound "Der Große Brockhaus" before he decided to take another look at the page spanning colorful illustrations.

It was a topographic map, a two-dimensional plane with height represented using a green-brown gradient. A rustic brown covered the center of the picture, presumably the Alpen mountains if the title of the page were to be believed. An uncontrolled smile grew across Sonic's face excited to finally have a lead. Only being in this new world for three days, the sole clue Sonic had to determine his current location was the flags he had seen in the two towns he had been in. Being a striking red banner, Sonic figured it would not be too hard to fish it out of the book. So he began turning pages. While Sonic's speed was primarily in his feet, he had no issues with grabbing corners of pages and flipping them over rapidly in succession. After fake-outs from other flags, page 225 contained the bright banner with shuriken like centerpiece that Sonic had grown to dislike but appreciate how distinct it was. On the page contained a variety of different flags, some with stripes, others with birds, but all used the same black, white, and red color scheme. At the top of the page was the title, "Deutsches Reich". Sonic guessed that that was the name of the country he was in.

Turning back to the two-page spanning world map he had passed earlier, he began to drag his finger across countries to scan for a country name match. A long continent snaked down the western section of the map north to south, with it nearly splitting in two in "Panama", but it held together. With none of the names matching, he crossed over an ocean into the mega continent filling much of the central and eastern parts of the map.

"Norwegen, no, Schweden, Fin-land, Russland. Neiydur-land, Doytchest Reyke… Doychest Rieke!" There, a bit right of the center of the two pages, was an area demarcated as 'Deutsches Reich,' or 'German Empire,' or 'Germany'. The country was actually split into two parts, a large central area, and a significantly smaller section enclaved by the baltic sea and 'Polen'. "And with this newfound information I can reveal that I still have no idea where the Emeralds are." He scanned through the rest of the map, but sadly there were no spots listed as Chaos Emerald landing spots.

"Okay, seven Emeralds, all spread out across the globe, but where?" All the previous lectures Tails or Knuckles had given about how the Emerald spread themselves out had largely gone in one ear and out the other with Sonic. He rubbed his eyelids with the palm of his gloved hand trying to excavate any long since buried memories. "The planet has energy pumping through it…." By now he had switched from rubbing his eyelids to tapping his forehead with the knuckles of his index and middle fingers. "...And the Emeralds try to store as much of it as possible. So they spread to evenly take in as much as possible. And this energy comes from, well, everything. The sun, machines, plants." Anyone listening in could have practically heard the cogs in Sonic's mind bashing against each other. "And with the ocean splitting the land up, the Emeralds should go to each continent. Okay, this long continent, Nord-America and Saud-America, basically splits in the middle. I'm thinking an Emerald each for the two halves." The cogs were getting oiled and beginning to spin rapidly. "And there's always an Emerald at one of the poles. Three Emeralds down. Uh, Afrika is kinda off on its own, so it gets its own Emerald. And so is Aus-traylien, so another Emerald there. So the last two Emeralds should be at the ends of this continent, one here in Europa, and another in Asyan." Sonic plotted mental dots on the map trying to visual where the Emeralds likely were. "But where here?"

Forward a couple pages was a blown up map of Europe with cleaner borders and the largest cities marked with varying sizes of dots. It did not take long for Sonic to find 'Ulm' in the south half of Germany, narrowing down his location to a couple square miles. For Sonic, the most eye-catching feature on this new map were the stars used to note the capital city of each country, such as 'Bern', 'Dublin', and 'Helsinki'. The grandiose of the five-pointed stars simply trumped any of the mere circles on the map. Nothing important had ever happened in München, Sonic figured, all the action was happening in Luxemburg.

"Actually, there are a ton of capitals by Luxemburg. And they're all sandwiched between Frank-rieke, doychest-rieke, and Vere-ing-test, Ko-nig-rieke. I bet the only way these small countries could survive next to these bigger ones is if they were, like, super powerful. If the Emerald in Europa was anywhere, I don't see why it wouldn't be in Luxemburg. Route from Ulm to Luxemburg, go north west." Content knowing his guess on the where a Chaos Emerald may be located was based exclusively on the contradiction that a country was strong since it was small and that another country was strong since it was big, Sonic shut the encyclopedia and slid it towards its home bookshelf. He jumped to his feet, whirled around the room putting the books back in their respective slots, and turned off his flashlight.

"And if it isn't there, I can always check the North Pole next." Knowing he would likely never see this place again, he gave the room a once-over to absorb the architecture and mural one last time before grabbing the ornate, but dinky, door handle to exit out the way he came. Returning to the maintenance lounge, Sonic tossed the Diamon flashlight onto one of the piles of miscellaneous tools before leaving out the still unlocked back door.


End file.
